Fin selection and board length advice needed

02-09-2012, 12:20 PM

About me: Been surfing several times a week for about 14yrs mostly spring and fall. I would rate my surfing as beginner/average with most my surfing being carving, smacking the lip, cut backs and the occasional floater in there........ Nothing radical or advanced. Went from a 6'6" performance board to a 8'2" mini long board and now want something in the middle. Enter hybrid. I weigh 200 and am 6'2" tall.

Conditions: eastern NC surf typical 2' on good days and much bigger on storm swell. I do want to be able to semi-duck dive this thing as i have to paddle out in storm surf.

Board: Im sold on the addvance but dont know whether to get the 72 or 76. One of the biggest problems here is catching the wave. Im a strong paddler but i want to make sure i can takeoff on 80% of what i catch with the 8'2".

Fins: Im looking at the futures system with either the 5-fin rusty or AM2s. Im leaning towards the rusty since theyre supposedly made for this type of board but idk.

On the fins department you are spot on in my opinion. The AM2 5fin's are a good choice at your weight. Also the Pancho Sullivan set could be interesting for what you are doing right now.
As far as size goes, you'll be more than ok wit the 7'2", in fact it might feel a bit corky. Have you considered the 6'10"?.
Have you considered the Dominator as an alternative for a bit more aggressive board??? (of course if that's what you could be looking for)

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Yes i have considered the 6 10 and im actually going to sweetwater in Wrightsville beach to see one on Saturday. He has one of those in stock and ill see once i get my hands on it. Wave count is paramount as our conditions can be quite fickle.

Thanks for the suggestion on the fin, you like the AM2 over the rustys? ill have to lookup the fins you suggested.....

Thanks, I'm now on the fence between the 6 10 and the 7 2, I've determined the 7 6 to be more an equivalent package to my 8 2 mini longboard.

Still looking opinions on futures fin systems. I think the key to remember here is the smallish typical surf here and the need for speed since its typically a fast beach break. I don't typically free the fins too much on purpose so I'm thinking the lower profile and agile the better?

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Ordered a 702 addvance with 5 fin futures system today. Fin choice was made basically out of number of recommendations on here. I went with the AM2s 5-fin system. Truthfully I'm not a pro and probably wouldnt be able to describe the difference between the fin choices I had. However, since I was only doing this once I wanted to do it with the most information possible.

After getting my hands on the addvance its a log man, its nicely shaped though and i'm impressed with the rail work to make it work.

Requested the plain wood deck, the one in stock locally had a hideous graphic on the deck. Why would you cover up that beautiful wood deck with some tacky graphic?

Oh, and also I noticed on several of the in stock boards that the finish work was a little rough. Eespecially towards the nose there were some spots where the finish was not polished as smooth as I'm used to. I hope my board does not exhibit any of these flaws.

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Pics? If you mean of the boards I didn't take any pics and the shop is 1hr away..... If your curious about the blemishes they looked like when they stepped up on the grit on the polish sequence they didn't quite get the cross hatching buffed out in spots.

If the boards are still there when I pick mine up, I'll shoot a couple with my phone.